Quote:
Originally Posted by Nathan Streeter
My current prediction based off of the current points scored (2x first event for those who have only one event, with adjustments for Hartford, NEU, and Pine Tree being more full and for the chunk of points being absorbed by 3rd-event teams) is that the cut-off will be at 59 points. Currently the 6 DCA winners are all above this cut-off, so this could be the actual cut-off.
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I'm slightly increasing my earlier estimate of a 57-58 cutoff up to 59-60 based on analysis of all teams having completed their first event and a better sense of how teams earned points in their first and second event (second event shows a mean 23% increase in points scored mostly due to the observation below). But as Nathan correctly points out there are likely to be many teams who qualify but are unable to attend so teams with lower points scores will be at the District Championship.
This was also the first week of competitions where there was a substantial proportion of second event teams and the impact on outcomes was quite dramatic.
Second event teams averaged 35 points at both RIDE and Southington whereas first event teams averaged only 14 and 17 points respectively. The primary cause was elimination selection. At RIDE 18 of the 21 second event teams made it to eliminations compared to only 6 of 16 first event teams. The pattern was similar in Southington with 19 of 20 second event teams advancing vs only 5 of 12 first event teams.
The most obvious explanation would be that experience playing the game helps performance, but it does suggest that there is some specific strategic benefit to teams picking events to compete in (small events over larger events and first event early, second event in the middle of the season).